Retired Navy SEAL James Hatch was adamant about avoiding “Action Man” cliches in a memoir that offers wrenching detail on mental and physical wounds that nearly drove him to suicide. In fact, Hatch’s book never uses the term “Navy SEAL,” an approach solidified during a conversation with a fellow commando embarrassed by its ubiquity in books and movies. The approach involved writing, over and over, about the night that he suffered a career-ending wound searching for Army Sgt. In the book, he explains the purpose of writing about what troubled him: “you hate yourself for flawed reasons. A seven-page description of a nighttime Afghanistan mission ends without gunfire, but Hatch notes how civilians’ horrified expressions struck him.

Source: National Post May 17, 2018 18:22 UTC